An already underwhelming crop of free agent shortstops has seen Juan Uribe, Jhonny Peralta, and Tsuyoshi Nishioka come off the market and now it sounds like the Rays are ready to trade Jason Bartlett to one of the teams still looking to fill the position.

Bartlett is coming off a sub par season and will likely make about $5 million in 2011 via arbitration before becoming a free agent, but teams with a hole at the position are running out of other options and he’s certainly a solid enough all-around shortstop to be a nice short-term solution.

Buster Olney of ESPN.com reports that “trade talks involving Bartlett have moved to point where the Rays will find an acceptable deal for the shortstop” and previous reports listed the Giants, Cardinals, Orioles, and Nationals among teams interested in him.

Tampa Bay has 25-year-old Reid Brignac ready to step in as the starter, and could use the money saved and players acquired by dealing Bartlett to rebuild the bullpen that figures to lose Joaquin Benoit, Rafael Soriano, and Grant Balfour.

Mountain View native Jason Bartlett’s career year two years ago was clearly an outlier at .875 OPS, with a previous high of .760 in 2006 and a .675 last year. Brignac was at .692, not much of an upgrade, but he is 6 years younger and paid the minimum, an important consideration in Tampa. Sean Rodriguez, at .705, and also 25, is available as a middle infielder as well.